


One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

by mercurybard



Category: Black Donnellys
Genre: Incest, Other, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Threesome - F/M/M, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:53:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurybard/pseuds/mercurybard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenny's always been like the fifth Donnelly brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Step Forward

It wouldn't take a genius to figure out whatever Tommy and Kevin were headed off to go do would be violent and quite possibly get them killed.

And while I'm no genius, I'm also not stupid.

But I also know Tommy Donnelly—probably better than I know myself—and I know nothing's going to get him out of that elevator.

Because, once again, his brothers have dragged him down into a whole mess of trouble, and Tommy's always seen it as his God-given duty to protect his brothers. Even as kids, he was always bailing them out. Sean got caught stealing gum from a convenience store when he was four. Tommy's the one who got him off with just an apology and paying for the pack. When Kevin filched Lou Two-Toes' wallet, it was Tommy who made sure it got back in the old soldier's pocket before Lou even realized it was missing. And Jimmy…well, he's spent a lifetime cleaning up after Jimmy.

He used to bail me out too, back when the folks in the neighborhood used to say _those Donnelly boys and Jenny Reilly_ all in one breath. Sometimes, if they were in a rush, they'd say _those damn Donnellys_. I got lumped in with the boys.

I liked that.

Even before I fell in love with Tommy.

God Himself knows there's no way I can get Tommy to step out of the elevator, so I take the step in.

Because it's been too long since we were _those damn Donnellys_ together.


	2. Two Steps Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As told by Joey Ice Cream

You gotta understand: Jenny Reilly had run with the Donnelly brothers since she was a kid, but when she got married, that was it. No more mischief. No more practically living at the Donnelly house. Maybe it was 'cause she was scared by how much she loved Tommy. Or maybe she just decided for once to _not_ give the old biddies in the neighborhood something to talk about.

So, when they walked up to the tavern that night, Sal's men didn't know what to think. Maybe, they thought it was a ploy on Tommy's part to keep them from hurting him and Kevin. Sal's people were old school: no women, no children. This business was men's business, and Jenny Reilly had no place in it.

Except on the way over, Tommy had taken the gun he'd gotten off of Jimmy and gave it to Kevin and then made Kevin give his gun (which he'd grabbed from The Firecracker when the somewhat confused cry had gone out that Sean was lying dead on the pavement) to her. See, Tommy didn't want Jenny caught with the gun that been used to shoot Louie Downtown if things went sour. That was Tommy—always protecting everybody.

And never thinking of himself. He walked right in there with nothing but a knife in his coat collar, and I don't think neither Kevin nor Jenny knew about that. They just stood outside the tavern, trying to look cool for Sal's men, and watched as Tommy disappeared into the basement. They had to be thinking that they weren't ever gonna see him alive again. When that first shot went off, downstairs, both of them drew without thinking.

Now, Jimmy had been the one to teach Jenny how to shoot, same as he taught Sean. He'd take the two of them to a vacant lot down the street from where they grew up—about a block from where she lived now—and they'd practice gunning down beer bottles. Sean once shot old Mrs. Tanner's cat, but that was an accident, and they buried it complete with a three-gun salute. Which was more than that damn cat deserved.

So anyway, when they heard the gunshot in the basement and thought they knew that Tommy was dead, their guns came out, quick as anything. _Pop_ , _pop_ , and both of Sal's men were dead, and both Kevin Donnelly and Jenny Reilly were killers, same as Tommy. Because Tommy wasn't dead. He'd just inadvertently taken over the neighborhood.


	3. I'll Be Here When It All Gets Weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: incest

They're dirty, they're blood-smeared, and they're all three paler than ghosts. They make it to the Firecracker Lounge on autopilot, and Tommy unlocks the door, lets them in. The place reeks of cigarette smoke and spilled beer. It's hard to imagine that just this morning, Patty was lying in state by the pool table, Joey Ice Cream's poncho tucked under his arm.

Jenny goes straight to the bathroom, and the brothers can hear the water running. Tommy goes straight to the bar. His fingers are so coated with blood that the first bottle he grabs slips right through them. It sort of bounces on the floor with a dull 'thunk' and cracks. Part of him wishes it had shattered (but the wood's too rotted for that). Maybe a spray of whiskey and broken glass is what he needs to shake him out of this fog.

Kevin comes up behind him—he can feel his brother's warmth at his back—and reaches 'round him to get another bottle of Jack. Tommy just stands there, staring down at his red hands and the booze seeping into floorboards. Then his brother slides his scrawny arms around Tommy's middle—the bottle pressing up against his hip—and rests his forehead on Tommy's shoulder. Kevin's breathing in shallow, raggedy breaths that he can feel on the back of his neck, and then Tommy starts shaking. It's too much…too much…

They don't sit down so much as fall, and Tommy's half in Kevin's lap, and there's whiskey soaking into his pant leg, and someone's crying, and it might just be him. Then, there's Jenny—pale and perfect and no longer pure. She crouches down, crawls in between Tommy's splayed legs, and then her mouth's on his as she cups his face with hands scrubbed raw and bleach-scented.

He's dreamed for years about what kissing Jenny Reilly would be like. It's desperation, and the both of them drinking each other in so fiercely it's like they want to just crawl inside the other and hide from what they've done. What they've both done. Together.

Then Kevin—God, Kevin's still here and he's just as mixed up in this as the two of them—decides he needs a drink and accidentally hits Tommy in the side of the head with the bottle as he raises it.

One of Jenny's hands moves from Tommy's face to Kevin's as he slugs back a finger's worth (spilling some on his brother's ear), and then she takes it from him and swallows down a mouthful without taking the time to taste it. Her eyes are glassy, and it might be the whiskey or it might tears, but then she's leaning back over Tommy's shoulder and kissing Kevin. Her hand's still on Tommy's neck and her tits are smashed against his chest and when he turns just a little, he can see her tongue sliding into his little brother's mouth and it's so damn hot and so damn wrong all at the same time. He turns his head the other way and takes a drink of his own.

Their baby brother's in the hospital—maybe dying—and Jimmy's in jail and they've just killed men and it's all so wrong, Tommy thinks as he reaches between them and undoes the button on Jenny's jeans. So wrong, and he slides her zipper down.

Kevin makes a little moan when Jenny breaks the kiss with him and places her lips right behind Tommy's ear and starts moving them down his neck. There's got to be some connection between his neck and his groin, and it's his turn to moan as she nips at him. Then another set of lips—Jesus fucking Christ this is all wrong—starts on the other side, and he squirms between them. Jenny and Kevin. Kevin and Jenny.

Suddenly, his jacket's too warm. He wants out of it—out of all his clothes—and he wants to feel bare skin pressing against his. Tommy tugs at the lapels of her jacket, pushing the coat off her shoulders, and she shrugs out of it, ducks her head and raises her arms so he peel both her shirts up and off. The neon shamrock in the window casts green light over her skin, and he thinks of stories about the sidhe he used to hear as a kid. His hands make faint streaks across her pale flesh. Blood. He's covered in blood. They all are. Behind him, Kevin's shedding clothes, banging an elbow against the bar in the rush. Tommy barely notices as he traces a finger over Jenny's stomach, the downward curve of her hip. The blood's mostly dry now, and it flakes off against her skin like old paint.

He slides his hands down inside her jeans, hooking his thumbs over the waistband and dragging it down, sliding it over her hips, her ass. Her bra's tan and her panties black. Her husband's been out of town for months, stuffed in an oil drum, and no one's got the heart to tell her. Tommy presses his mouth to her belly, kissing the soft flesh below her ribs, as he strips her pants off her.

He's still in the damn jacket, and it's fucking hot as hell. The kisses he places right along the top of her underwear are reverent as prayers, and then he looks up at her. "I shoulda told you," he says, and they both know what he should've said. Kevin's stripping him from behind, and if he gets what's going on, he doesn't seem to care.

There's a noise like a gunshot, and they freeze, hearts pounding slightly out of sync until Jenny whispers, "Just a car backfiring". Still, they stay like that for a minute. The smell of them—Jenny's bleach and perfume like flowers and Kevin's plain old Ivory soap and the sharp hint of gun residue that covers them all like an invisible veil—is filling Tommy's nostrils, making him dizzy.

When they move again, it's all in a rush of hands and lips and teeth. Sprawling in the narrow space behind the bar, rolling over whiskey-soaked clothes, pale skin moving against pale skin, long fingers tangling in curls. Tommy sighs like the life is going out of him as Kevin's hand wraps itself around his cock. Jenny crawls over him and Kevin's hand, and Tommy kisses a line from her collarbone down to her breast, teasing the nipple into his mouth. A twist of his brother's wrist and Tommy's biting down and Jenny's hissing just on this side of pleasure. One of Tommy's hands clutches at Kevin, latching onto his crucifix as the other wanders down the soft planes of Jenny until his fingers are fumbling at her slit, and they're all going straight to Hell.

His little brother curls against him like they're kids again and forced to share a bed since Sean out-grew the crib, except they would've never dared to touch one another like Kevin's touching him now. Because it's a crucifix digging into his palm and maybe it's the liquid courage in them that's making the barriers between right and wrong so fuzzy. Or maybe it's because they've killed men tonight, and that's like lead in his gut, and he'll do anything to chase that feeling away. _In for a penny, in for a pound_ , and Father O'Malley might have a coronary come confessional.

His breath stutters, and he's coming into Kevin's hand as he arches his back. His vision hazes over with the strength of all of it, and Jenny looks luminous. Kevin's mouth on his shoulder; Kevin's hard-on pressing into the side of his hip. Tommy's not sure he remembers how to use his hands, still reeling in the aftershocks of a night that's just too much, so he bucks Jenny a little, tipping her to his brother. He's waited years for her—never sure just what they were waiting for—he can wait a little longer if it'll banish some of the fear from Kevin's eyes. She goes willingly, loose-limbed and languid, and it's all for the same reasons. The three of them—they're the closest in age, but Kevin's never had to be the man of the family and he didn't force himself to grow up fast with a marriage straight outta left field. Jenny rolls him onto his back and slides down on him.

Their tempo's off, rhythmless, until Tommy puts his hand over Kevin's on her hip, guides. Nuzzles his nose into the crook of his brother's neck, touching the tip of his tongue to the freckles on Kevin's shoulder. He moves his fingers to Jenny's clit and works in small circles until she lets out a silent cry and brings Kevin into his own orgasm.

It's too cold to be naked in the bar like this, but they don't move, curled together. Tommy's own come drying on his stomach, and Kevin's cooling between Jenny's thighs. A siren wails in the distance, breaking whatever spell fell over them. Slowly, they pull apart, dress. Blood and Jack and semen and dirt from the floor. They're a mess, but they gather their things to go back to the hospital. There will be questions, and Sean's still possibly dying, and they still don't have any answers for themselves, much less the world.


	4. It's Warmer in the Basement

Jenny was shaking. Either from rage or from terror, she couldn't tell.

She was a little too distracted by the sudden _education_ she'd received tonight at the hands of Dokey Farrell to stop and analyze her feelings. Besides, she was Irish—she'd bottle everything up inside until it all exploded out in stereotypical fashion. But Jenny wasn't just Irish, she was black Irish, and if there was one thing the black Irish were good at, it was surviving. If she was going to survive, that meant she was going to have to learn.

One, that being a hostage blew. Dokey and his goon had grabbed her—right out of Huey's wake, no less—and dragged her down into the Firecracker's musty basement that always smelled like stale beer from the old kegs and wood shavings from Jimmy's abortive woodworking projects. And there was nothing she could do. That was what irked Jenny the most—that she'd gotten herself mixed up in what boiled down to a pissing contest and she didn't have the right equipment for it. And while her friends, her brothers…no, she thought as Kevin came up behind her and slid an arm over her shoulders, her _lovers_ fronted and fought, she was expected to stand on the sidelines.

Jenny wanted nothing more than to march right back down those stairs and tell Dokey and Tommy and all the other chauvinist pigs where to shove it. She also wanted to pee her pants at the thought of facing Dokey again—God knew, anyone in their right mind would be terrified of that axe-wielding maniac. So, the arm across her chest was holding her back as much as it was helping her hold her fear in.

She was also trying not to think about how this was the first time she and Kevin had touched since that night when everything went to Hell, and the three of them—her, Tommy, and Kevin— had tried to grab a little back on the floor not two feet from where she was standing now. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the warm haze of skin and whiskey.

In all fairness, Jenny decided, Tommy wasn't being a pig—he was just being Tommy, trying to protect everyone. Which was why she and Kevin were up here, while he and Jimmy were downstairs…and Jenny wondered if she was the only one to see the similarities: Tommy and Jimmy, Huey and Dokey.

She wondered if Huey had seen it too.

"I hate this," Kevin murmured into her ear. "This waiting shit."

"So do I."

"What do we do?"

It was surreal. Jimmy could very well be getting his leg chopped off just under their feet, and nobody would notice. There could be men bleeding to death downstairs, and people would just keeping drinking their beer (and she really didn't want to know how Tommy and Kevin had acquired it) and eating their sandwiches. It made her want to scream. Instead, she took the plastic cup of beer Kevin handed her.

Samson the delivery boy was watching her, Jenny realized as she looked over the rim of her glass. The way he'd acted today when he came in with the day's bread…it made her think that he might be sweet on her. The expression on his face certainly wasn't a happy one as Kevin looped his other arm possessively around her waist. "Just what I need," she muttered into her beer, then licked some dried foam off the lip of her cup. Yep—Samson's eyes definitely followed her tongue. It made her feel dirty.

And she wasn't sure how she felt when Kevin nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck and pressed a kiss right below her earlobe. Because it was _Kevin_. She'd never thought about him that way. In any way, really. He was just Kevin Donnelly—something between a brother and a friend and a nuisance who'd once stolen her My Little Pony underwear and run down the street with them on his head. There was still something innocent and almost childish about him as if growing up in Tommy's shadow had protected him from some of the harsher parts of life.

So that was why she shrugged out of his embrace. "Kevin…no…"

"Why not? What'd I do wrong?"

It was like she'd just kicked a puppy, and Jenny suddenly had a hard time meeting those pleading eyes. But then, Tommy and Jimmy came up the stairs with Dokey and his goons behind them, and she turned and threw herself at them, snarling at Dokey and making sure that Tommy was untouched, unharmed.

It wasn't until Tommy pressed a kiss into her hair that she realized what she might have just done to Kevin. It was just so instinctual—to go to his brother like this. Forever, it had been Tommy and Jenny, Jenny and Tommy, and she wasn't sure how they were going to fit Kevin into that equation. She wasn't sure at all.


End file.
